Stupid Cupid
by setepenre-set
Summary: Megamind's evil plot for Valentine's Day goes a little awry. Don't copy to another site.
1. Chapter 1

"Ow!"

The tip of the heart-shaped arrowhead punctures through his glove; blood wells up from the cut on his finger, a crimson droplet against black leather.

Roxanne laughs, and Megamind looks up at her sharply.

He's—he's never heard her laugh before; the sound of it is beautiful.

(he wants to make her do it again, over and over again, even if he has to bleed each time for it.)

"You are in trouble now, aren't you?" she says, eyes sparkling with mischief.

Megamind jerks in surprise, thinking for one paranoid instant that she's read his thoughts about him bleeding and her laughter.

Roxanne nods at his hand, at the arrow he's still holding.

"Don't you remember what happened to Cupid?" she asks.

"I—"

Roxanne grins at him and his heart flutters.

"—as though you'd spend even one night not looking, Miss Ritchi," he says without thinking, and then immediately and wholeheartedly regrets it, because the implication—oh god, what's wrong with him—

Roxanne throws her head back and laughs. Megamind blushes hot.

(the sound of her laughter is still beautiful. the embarrassment of making that singularly inappropriate comment is immediately worth it, just as the pain of the cut from the arrow was worth it.)

"—you'd have had that candle out right away," he mutters, face burning, "nobody would have had to talk you into it."

He puts his hurt finger in his mouth, less out of the belief that this might make the pain ease and more out of a desire to make himself stop talking, for evil's sake Megamind, just stop talking—

Roxanne laughs again, and Megamind can barely stop himself from swooning.

"You're right; I totally would have," she says, then gives him a particularly teasing smile. "Would you have thrown me out for it?"

"No, of course not," he says automatically—

—and then, realizing what he's said, immediately panics and presses the button to open up the floor and reveal the alligators.

Alligators may not be in the spirit of Valentine's Day, and they certainly hadn't factored into his original death trap plans—

But!

There's really nothing like sudden and unexpected alligators for getting out of an awkward social situation!

* * *

"What was all that you and Miss Ritchi were talking about?" Uncle Tracy asks, leading Megamind back to his prison cell after Metro Man's rescue of Miss Ritchi and Megamind's arrest.

"Nothing," Megamind mutters, face flaming. "It was nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing."

"It was nothing!"

"It was flirting!" Uncle Ivan says as they pass his cell.

Uncle Tracy, who had been walking very slowly in any case, actually stops next to Uncle Ivan's cell.

"Really," Uncle Tracy says interestedly. "You sure?"

"Don't you remember?" Uncle Ivan says as Megamind groans and hides his face in his handcuffed hands. "That greek mythology kick Blue was on for a while when he was a kid? Cupid and Psyche—"

"Can we please not—" Megamind says loudly, but Uncle Ivan just raises his voice and continues talking over him.

"Cupid cut himself on one of his own arrows and fell in love with Psyche! That's what Miss Ritchi meant—"

"The arrow was probably overkill in this case," Uncle George interjects from the next cell.

Megamind, face still covered, moans in abject humiliation.

"—and he kidnapped her," Uncle Ivan continues, "and they—ahem—slept together—"

"—you know what would be wonderful?" Megamind says conversationally, to the universe at large. "Not having this conversation. Ever."

Everyone ignores him.

"—they slept together every night," Uncle Ivan goes on, "only it was always dark in the room and she wasn't allowed to look at him for—some reason; I don't know. But her sisters talked her into it and she lit a candle and looked. And then he threw her out and she had to go through all kinds of trouble to win him back and—"

Uncle George suddenly makes a series of urgent gestures and Uncle Ivan falls silent with a gulp, eyes fixing on a point somewhere behind Megamind and Uncle Tracy.

Uncle Tracy turns around guiltily.

"Warden!" he says, "Uh. I was just—"

"Oh, good!" Megamind says loudly, "Warden! I am a very, very dangerous criminal! Very dangerous! Extremely criminal! And! I should be put in solitary confinement! Immediately!"

The Warden regards all of them with a stern, unreadable gaze—and then he lifts his mug to his lips, takes a sip of coffee, lowers the mug.

He fixes his eyes on Megamind, then, and his mustache works for a moment.

"You know," he says finally, "I think Miss Ritchi would prefer it if you just asked her out instead of springing alligators on her, son."

All of the uncles break out into relieved laughter and agreement as Megamind sputters in incoherent outrage.

"I—I—! That's—! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

The Warden raises an eyebrow.

"Of course she wouldn't prefer it!" Megamind snaps, flushing. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"Huh," the Warden says. "Guess you didn't catch it, then."

"The complete and utter nonsense of—catch it?" Megamind says. "Catch what?"

The Warden raises both eyebrows.

"She asked if you'd throw her out for looking," he says, then pauses.

Megamind waits for him to go on, and then, when the Warden doesn't, he gestures irritably with his handcuffed hands.

"Yes, _and?"_

"She asked if you'd throw her out," the Warden says again. "As in— _she wouldn't have left if she saw it was you."_

Megamind's jaw drops.

The jaws of all his uncles drop.

The Warden takes a smug sip of coffee, salutes the whole group of them with his mug, and then walks away.

For a moment, none of them say anything as all of them stare after him.

Then, without any warning at all, Megamind gives his hands a quick twist, jerks off the suddenly loose handcuffs, snaps one cuff onto Uncle Tracy's wrist and the other on the bar of Uncle Ivan's cell.

"—I have to go," Megamind blurts out, and takes off running for the exit.

"Yeah!" Uncle George calls after him.

"Go on!" Uncle Ivan shouts.

"Go get her, kid!" Uncle Tracy yells, and rattles the handcuffs against the cell bar encouragingly.

* * *

 _...the end._

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed the story for day four of my Nine Days of Megamind!** **And that you enjoyed the return of some members of Megamind's prison family, who were first seen in my story Say It Out Loud!**

 **(If you missed the fic for days two and three of the Nine Days of Megamind, change your settings to view M rated stories and you should see it!)**


	2. Chapter 2

Roxanne is sitting on her couch and flipping through her collection of takeout menus, trying to decide what to order for dinner, when the doorbell rings.

She makes a face at the sound—you'd think the kids selling school fundraiser stuff could at least give it a break on Valentine's Day—and doesn't get up from the sofa. Maybe she's coldhearted, but she's bought enough overpriced, badly made candy for a lifetime, and there's really something just—prohibitively pathetic about the thought of buying more for herself today of all days.

The bell rings again.

Roxanne's eyebrows go up in mild surprise.

The echo of the doorbell's ending chime is followed by an urgent sounding knock.

Roxanne sighs, tosses the menus on the coffee table, and gets up. There's just a chance that it's someone wanting something more important than to sell her a box of cheap-tasting chocolate covered cherries.

Maybe it's—oh, no; perhaps it's one of the Blumenthals, here to ask her to come over for 'a nice chat and some tea, dear' again; they're always doing that after one of her kidnappings. The two old ladies mean well, but their investment in Roxanne's nonexistent love life is really quite embarrassing, and today of all days, she really does not want to face it; she'd actually prefer a kid selling cheap chocolates—

The doorbell rings a third time as she's walking to the door.

"Okay, okay!" Roxanne says, hurrying the last few steps in spite of herself.

She unlatches the door, opens it, and—

—stares.

Megamind is standing in front of her apartment door, which is extremely weird for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that he's never done multiple kidnappings on a single day to the question of why he would ring her doorbell for a kidnapping to the way that he's just standing there and not, you know, kidnapping her—

Not to mention the way he's dressed, which is—

"Miss Ritchi," Megamind says.

Roxanne attempts to say—actually, she's not really sure what she's attempting to say, but whatever it is, it comes out as—

 _"—hhaa—?"_

—which is very much extremely _not_ what she's attempting to say and also sounds kind of like a dying sheep and—

Megamind's wearing normal clothes; a white button-up shirt and dark slacks and a light pink tie; an actual tie, and it's pink; how is this happening; the top button of the shirt is undone, the hollow of his throat showing, the blue of his skin a vivid contrast to the white and the pink and—

"Did you mean it?" Megamind blurts.

Roxanne drags her eyes away from the hollow of his throat and looks at his face.

"The implication—" he says, "—earlier—when you asked if I would have thrown you out for the candle—"

Roxanne blinks, hard, the words making about as much sense as the image of Megamind standing outside her door in a pink tie. She shakes her head slightly, trying to clear it.

"What?" she says.

Megamind's expression does something rapid and rather awful, the strange, desperate hope in his face vanishing in an instant with a bitter twist of his mouth and a shuttering of his eyes. Roxanne's heart plummets sickeningly at the sudden transformation, even though she has no idea why—

"Megamind," Roxanne says, desperate to make him stop looking like that, "Megamind; I have no idea what you're talking about—"

This appears to have been exactly the worst possible thing to say; Megamind's expression goes several degrees more terrible, something like disgust or contempt flashing in his face, followed by despair, and then he gives a queer, bitter little laugh and turns away as if to go.

"—never mind—shouldn't have even—of course—"

"—wait!" Roxanne lets go of the doorframe to catch at his arm, her voice rising on a note of distressed incomprehension, "—stop! Would you just—I don't know what—"

"Of course you don't!" Megamind says, voice rising, too. "Of course you don't; never mind; it doesn't matter—"

"Roxanne, dear," a quavery old voice says, "is everything all right?"

Megamind and Roxanne both freeze.

"—it's fine, Mrs. Blumenthal!" Roxanne says, in a loud, bright voice. "Everything is—"

The door across the hall opens and a gray head pokes out. Roxanne closes her eyes, internally groaning.

"Oh! You have company!" Vera Blumenthal gasps, clearly delighted, as she catches sight of Megamind. "Emily! Emily, come quick! Come see who's come to visit little Roxanne!"

At the sound of Mrs. Blumenthal's upraised voice, several more doors along the hallway open, the occupants of the apartments peering out.

"Oooh!"

"Well would you look at—"

"Oh!"

"Oh my god, Bob; come look!"

"You see, Emily?" Vera Blumenthal says happily to the other old lady who leans out the door beside her. "There, now, Roxanne, dear—"

"Nnnn!" Roxanne says, and lets go of Megamind to gesture frantically at Mrs. Blumenthal behind Megamind's back. "Nnnn!"

Vera Blumenthal ignores her completely.

"—didn't I tell you it'd turn out all right?" Vera Blumenthal continues, ignoring Roxanne's wild shushing motions. "'He'll come to his senses eventually' I said 'don't you fret so'. And you see how right I was? You see how right I was, Emily? I always know!"

"Yes, Vena," Emily Blumenthal says, looking at her wife with an indulgent eye and patting her hand. "You always know."

"And doesn't he clean up nice!" Anita Kowalski says, from farther down the hall, leaning out her own door.

"Tie's a bit weird," Bob Kowalski offers.

His wife swats him with the dish towel she's holding.

"They're all wearing ties like that these days, Bob," she says, "you're just old! Don't you pay any attention to him, Roxanne, he's just as pleased for you as any of us."

Megamind turns his head and looks at Roxanne with round eyes.

Roxanne makes a choking sound, her face going crimson.

Oh god. Oh god why is this happening to her.

"—poor dear, she was just pining, but I told her the last time she came over for tea, I said—"

"No!" Roxanne says, recovering her voice at last, "No no no! No! There was no pining! No pining! No fretting! I told you before, I am not—I have no idea what you're talking about! And—and Megamind just came here to ask me—"

She stops and gestures quickly at Megamind, to continue the sentence—

"—out?" Megamind says faintly.

"Out!" Roxanne repeats, nodding madly, and then, as the word actually registers. "Wa— _out!?_ What?!"

"I—would you?" he asks. "Like—to go out with me?"

Their watching crowd makes an appreciative, approving sound, but Roxanne isn't really paying attention to them anymore, is staring at Megamind, who is staring back at her. She reaches out a hand to steady herself on the doorframe.

"On a date?" she says, voice faint.

"A—yes."

"An actual—non-alligator-and-deathtrap type date?"

Megamind gives a choked little laugh, and Roxanne feels the edges of her own lips starting to twitch in the beginnings of an answering smile.

"Yes," he says, "yes, the—the non-alligator-and-deathtrap type of date. Would you like to, Roxanne?"

Roxanne's smile is no longer able to be contained.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, I would."

Megamind's smile spreads over his face, too, and—

The apartment hallway bursts into applause. Roxanne and Megamind both jump in surprise, turning to look at their audience.

"You see; it's just like I said!" Vera Blumenthal says, beaming. "Didn't I say he'd ask you eventually, dear?"

Roxanne's face goes hot again; when she looks over at Megamind, he's blushing, too, his cheekbones and the edges of his ears pink, almost the color of the tie he's wearing. As their eyes meet, both of their mouths twitch in mingled embarrassment and amusement.

"Right!" Roxanne says, grabbing his wrist. "Well! Anyway! Megamind and I are just going to go talk now in private, yes okay thanks goodbye!"

"—just like I said! I said everything will—"

Roxanne drags the now laughing Megamind into her apartment and closes the door firmly behind them.

* * *

 _...the end._

* * *

 **Happy Valentine's Day!**


End file.
